I have been searching the forums for ideas for good archers and have not found a lot. I like what Solus did here with the Village of the crown as far as the hoods go, but I am still not 100% satisfied. I figured I would get people's opinions on a few opposing possibilities and perhaps also generate some discussion.

Fundamentally, which of these two "major" torso-style designs for castles (each faction seems to have them) do you think is more realistic for an archer?The "scale armor" torso or the "heraldic tunic" torso ?

Or are the other castle or non-castle torsos that you feel are a more realistic representation of a medieval archer?What about this torso? Are the forestmen torsos more accurate (even being green)?

For Archers that go along with a specific faction, I use the "heraldric tunic" with the farmer's cowl. If they don't belong to a specific faction then they get the mail torso referred to as "scale armour" on BrickLink, with either a nasal helm or a kettle helm as their helmet.

For a standing army of archers, generally, I use the heraldic body with apropriate colour grey legs (light or dark depending on faction) or sometimes black, brown, etc. Basically no flamboyant legs. and they usually have a kettle helm with exception of my black falcons who use bullet helms because A) they look wrong in either grey or chrome armour and B) what's the use of having bullet helms if you can't use them. -T.R.

He who thinks you should look at the box that says "Quaraga" if you want to find out his username (about as useful to you as his real name). he only wants you to look so he can laugh about you looking there because he's a total smart...

I'm partial to the heraldic tunics myself, since they look lightly armored. Also, many real world archers did wear something to signify their alliegance, but they didn't all match with eachother so you'd have men with all sorts of national symbols ranjing from colors to crests to animals to religious symbols or just about anything that could be associated with their homeland. Since that would require dozens of different heraldic tunics for each faction, I'm content to use just one, though I, like to give them cowls and jedi hoods when possible to make them feel rabbleish. A few of my archers (the elites mainly) do get bullet or kettle helms, but they're usually multipurpous guardsmen rather than pure archers.

I prefer my archers (and troops in general) more or less un-uniformed, especially for earlier armies. Sadly, I am not able to equip a large amount of soldiers that way, and the look of my archers varies. In case of elite-like archers, I may uniform them but usually, I just give them any kind of neutral torso, legs and headgear along with a quiver & bow. Historically seen, the first uniformed troops in Western Europe I know of were Welsh longbowmen serving in the British army. As the Welsh did not all speak English, this helped the Englishmen to recognise friend from foe. During the campaign ending at the Battle of Azincourt, I even think the whole British army was uniformed with the Sct. George's Cross.

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and the day you discover why. (Donald Sensing)
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Thanks for all the great feedback. This has been really helping to fuel my creativity and design my armies.

It looks like I am going to do a mix of uniformed and mobbish... and I got over 20 of the torso that Username shared and plan to make a group of them out of that... I will try and share pictures when I get that far...

Shadowviking wrote:Hmm... a little vague..."Most realistic?" Historically? To what time period? To what culture? Practically? To what location? With what technology?

For the most part, though, you're probably looking at light dress and armour- tunics, leather, mail. Not or; and. In a historical setting, you won't have uniforms.

Hahahaha, true enough, I should have been more specific. My focus is more on the european (more western european) of the early to middle (and maybe a little high) middle ages... which is quite broad I know... so basically a middle period... like William the Conqueror, William Wallace, etc - pretty much right along with most of the photos you provided - which by the way were very helpful, thanks!!

footsteps wrote:For my archer 'troop', I liked the look of this torso.

I never would have thought of that for medieval, but it could really actually work...

Sorry I missed this earlier. I am partial to this red torso. I mix in some red or brown legs and a hood or hat and it looks ok. Sort of motley and sort of uniformed. I like that some of my archers are not armored. My crossbowmen are armored for the most part.